


drum him out of your dreams

by thewalrus_said



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Past Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Post-Break Up, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:11:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewalrus_said/pseuds/thewalrus_said
Summary: Peter lost himself in the anonymity of the Asteroid Belt, the constantly-changing skyscape more soothing than off-putting in his current mental state. There were a few raised eyebrows among his contacts when he declared himself done with jobs on Mars, but no one said anything about it, and there was plenty of work in the waystations of the Belt to keep him busy for a time.





	drum him out of your dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just gotta make your debut in a fandom with 1.5k of projection onto a fictional character.

Peter’s first stop, after fleeing Hyperion City and leaving the whole of Mars in his tracks, was a hole-in-the-wall dive bar on the third-largest moon of Jupiter. Thalia was behind the counter, as solid and as stolid as ever. She took one look at him and flung a half-full bottle of whiskey at his head. “You look like hell,” she said. “Pay up front and get out of my sight before you scare away my clientele.”

Her clientele, seeing as it was nine o’clock in the morning, consisted of a handful of nearly-sentient dust bunnies and the Dameson Triplets, none of whom so much as twitched at his entrance or appearance. Peter lifted his bottle in salute to them, threw a handful of creds onto Thalia’s counter, and disappeared into his room in the back.

It wasn’t his room, not really; Thalia had guests in and out all the time, and indeed there was still an abandoned shirt and a haze of cigarette smoke left over from the last lost soul. But it was Peter’s favorite, and it was empty more often than not when he came by, and it had a window Peter could just about squeeze himself through, opening out onto her yard.

Mag’s gravestone was tucked in the corner of her little garden, a patch of weeds deliberately cultivated to block it from view. There wasn’t any of Mag underneath - Peter had had to leave the body behind - but Thalia had let him bury the knife he’d killed Mag with, and that was close enough. “There’s someone else out there who knows about you now, Mag,” Peter said quietly, after half an hour curled up next to the stone, drinking steadily. “He knows everything about our last day. I didn’t tell him, but I let him see.” Peter drained the bottle and rolled back up to a seated position. “And then he broke my heart.” He snorted. “I think you’d like him, for that alone.”

No, that wasn't fair. Mag had loved Peter, right to the end, as much as Peter had loved him. No matter how it had all ended, Peter couldn’t picture a world in which Mag gloried in his pain. Peter leaned over, resting his forehead against the tiny stone, ignoring the way his stomach spun in protest. “I’m not sorry I killed you,” he murmured, his usual refrain. “I’m not sorry, but oh, Father, I do wish you were here.”

Peter wept, hand clenched over his mouth to keep in the sound of his sobs, tears staining the gravestone a darker gray in splotchy circles. The wave of grief ended with an anticlimax, as they always did - Peter’s eyes suddenly ceased to produce tears and his stomach stopped rolling. He wiped his face, caught his breath, and went back inside.

Thalia fed him, slamming a plate of potatoes and Jovian fried caterpillars onto a table next to the Triplets and pushing him into a chair. “It’s like you want me to break out,” Peter muttered, picking up his fork and poking gingerly at a caterpillar.

“Check your face, that ship has sailed,” Thalia shot back.

Peter lifted a hand and delicately ran a fingertip across his forehead. She was right, damn it. “Miss a week off your skincare routine and it all goes to shit.” One of the Triplets nodded sagely.

Thalia let him stay unmolested for seven days, long enough to burn through the stash of emergency beauty supplies he left with her and get his complexion back under control, but on the eighth day he woke to find her leaning against the wall, frowning at him. “What are you still doing here, Derian?”

“Wallowing,” he said, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and blinking. “It’s the prerogative of the recently heartbroken.”

“Thank the stars, I thought you were putting down roots or something.” Thalia straightened up, uncrossing her arms. “Go wallow somewhere else. I need the room.” This was a blatant lie and they both knew it, but Peter had never stayed longer than a week with her, and in truth it was making him as itchy as it was her.

He paid his respects to Mag, packed his things, and left a pile of creds inside the pillowcase for Thalia to find later. The bar was surprisingly full when he was done, and he made sure to lean over and give her a loud smacking kiss on the cheek before he left. She whacked his shoulder just lightly enough to avoid leaving a bruise, which Peter took as a mark of affection, as he always did.

Peter lost himself in the anonymity of the Asteroid Belt, the constantly-changing skyscape more soothing than off-putting in his current mental state. There were a few raised eyebrows among his contacts when he declared himself done with jobs on Mars, but no one said anything about it, and there was plenty of work in the waystations of the Belt to keep him busy for a time.

Against his better judgement, he wrote letters to Juno, nearly every day at first while his nightly face mask did its work. It had been the height of hubris to write him that first one, back when Juno knew him only as Rex Glass, back when he thought he might never see the detective again and to give him his true name was the height of romance. These letters Peter burned, flames licking his signature before the ink had the chance to dry, taking his invective and poetry and love up to the ceiling in curls of gray smoke.

Three months of burnt letters and cold creams passed before Peter checked in with dispatch on 15 Eunomia and got a flat refusal instead of an assignment. “Sorry, Dawn,” Braeden said with a shrug. “Someone’s been poking around in the system looking for you, and you know we gotta reveal that shit to clients. Makes ‘em skittish.”

Peter frowned. “What do you have on the searcher?”

Braeden wrinkled their nose. “Gotta take that one further up if you want details, all I know is they’re from Mars somewhere. Want the ping map?”

Peter took the map, more to check his suspicions than anything. The pings from his pursuer bounced all over the Inner Planets, and even the origin points came from several different Martian locales, but enough were within range of Hyperion City for Peter to confirm his initial hypothesis. That night, Peter jumped a shuttle to 3 Juno, unable to convince himself to resist that particular urge, and sent a message from a burner laptop.  _ While your persistence is flattering, and your stalking acumen is rather thrillingly frightening, your investigations are beginning to interfere with my ability to make ends meet. Please desist. _

Rita’s reply came within three hours.  _ Gosh, Agent Glass (d’you mind if I stick with Agent Glass? Only I figured with that many aliases in play I might as well stick with the first one I learned), I’m sorry. Times are tough and everyone’s gotta eat, I know that as well as anyone. Only our mutual friend (you know who I mean, of course) has gotten himself mixed up in some things that are making me nervous, and I figured I better know how to reach you in case he needs you. _

Peter had to sleep on that one, curled up on a cheap duvet in his rented room. He drafted his reply in daylight, which sometimes made his words flow easier.  _ I am sorry to hear that, but as I’m sure you know, I no longer take jobs on Mars, per the arrangement I made with our mutual friend at our last parting. I’m afraid you’ll have to rely on other avenues for support. I suppose I can’t stop you tracking me, but do try to be more subtle about it, won’t you? _

He didn’t wait for a reply, scrubbing the account and blanking the laptop before tossing it into the hungry maw of a trash compactor. His savings lasted three hedonistic weeks, and when he next presented himself to Braeden they nodded at him. “All clear,” they said, “well done. Top brass sent four jobs for you to pick from. Found your digger?”

Peter nodded, scanning the files on the tablet Braeden handed him. The first two were dull, basic smash-and-grabs without a half-decent security system between them, and the third, while compelling, was on Deimos. Peter glared at Braeden for that one. “Don’t look at me like that, you know I don’t pick the jobs,” they retorted. Peter squinted at them and returned his gaze to the tablet.

“The fourth,” he said finally, handing the tablet back to Braeden. Seven weeks in the Odyssean crater of Tethys, a nice long embedded grift and the chance for a bonus of Peter’s own choosing. “Don’t tell me they expected anything else.”

“I think they want your Mars block dropped, thought maybe you’d be into the Deimos job as a stepping stone.” Braeden produced a thick file folder from their jacket. “Burn this within forty-eight hours, you’re on your own for identities, blah blah, you know the drill. Your transport leaves in five days.”

_ Well, Juno, _ Peter wrote that night, listening to water fill the tub in the bathroom of his bolthole. A candle stood flickering further along the table, waiting for the night’s offering.  _ I’ve taken another job, one that will prevent me writing for quite some time. I can only hope the enforced break will quell the urge entirely. Tonight, I shall finish the bottle of wine at my elbow, peruse my research materials, and wash my hair; starting tomorrow I shall cease to be, for a period of eight weeks. Possibly longer, if I choose. Possibly shorter, if if all goes ill. I find I’ve grown rather bored with myself of late; I’m afraid you’ve quite overstayed your welcome in my thoughts, Juno Steel. If and when your erstwhile near-lover resurfaces in my psyche, I hope he is free from the specter of you. _

_ Yours, for just a moment longer, _

_ Peter Nureyev _

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://thewalrus-said.tumblr.com) if you have opinions on Peter Nureyev's skincare routine and choice of bath bombs.


End file.
